Investigation of bloodspatters in Eline Melters’ ‘suicide’ case over two months delayed

A quick note. On January 12th we met with the Public Attorney in Maastricht, where we were told that they would investigate evidence that was gathered in the initial investigation on December 8th, 2009. The public attorney hoped to have the results of this analysis in 6-8 weeks. Shortly after the meeting of January 12th the Dutch Forensic Institute was asked to start analysing the evidence.

Almost 10 weeks have passed and we still have no news. According to the Public Attorney’s Office the Dutch Forensic Institute is dealing with an overload of work, especially from the large investigation into the Malaysian Airlines MH17 that was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. This massive investigation has already led the Dutch Forensic Institute to outsource some of their regular analysis to private forensic companies. As a result the analysis of the blood spatters that were found in Kloosterstraat 4a, where Eline and Mart lived together and where Eline sustained her fatal wounds, will not be available for the end of May. A delay of over 2 months.

I’m sure that the Dutch Forensic Institute is indeed very busy with the MH17 investigation, but I doubt that is the only reason why they have not started/finalized the analysis of the blood spatters. 77 jobs are likely to be cut if Dutch parliament indeed decreases the budget for the Dutch Forensic Institute by 9.6 million euros. Both the police and public attorney are concerned about this prospect. Nevertheless, according to a spokesperson of the Dutch Forensic Institute will honor all made agreements with the police and the public attorney within the time they agreed to do it. Obviously this is not the case for us.